Huda Sha'awari - Hero in History Medallion

Huda Sha’arawi
1879–1947, b. Minya, Egypt
Worked in Cairo, Egypt
Men have singled out women of outstanding merit and put them on a pedestal to avoid recognizing the capabilities of all women.
—Huda Sha’arawi, The Harem Years: Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist (1897–1924)

• Sha’arawi was an Egyptian feminist who founded the Egyptian Feminist Union (1923).
• An anticolonial activist, Sha’arawi organized Egypt’s largest women-led, anti-British demonstration (1919), a milestone in the events leading to Egypt’s independence in 1922.
• Sha’arawi refused to wear the hijab in public after 1922.